Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
According to the Associated Press, media witnesses reported that Pike remained awake and was snoring more than 40 minutes after the second dose of pentobarbital was administered.
The Tennessee Department of Correction had not provided a detailed explanation for the failed execution as of Thursday morning, while Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency motion seeking to halt the process.
The development followed a legal battle earlier on Wednesday. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had temporarily halted the execution, saying it needed more time to consider Pike’s arguments that evidence of childhood sexual abuse and neglect had not been properly considered during her sentencing.
The US Supreme Court later overturned the stay, allowing Tennessee officials to proceed with the execution. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, killed Slemmer, whom they knew from the Knoxville Job Corps training centre in 1995.
Prosecutors said Pike and Shipp attacked Slemmer after Pike accused her of trying to take her boyfriend. Slemmer was beaten and stabbed, while a pentagram was carved into her body.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.
Pike’s lawyers have argued that her age, history of severe childhood abuse and neglect, and mental health history should have been taken into account when determining her sentence.
They also said crucial evidence about her childhood and background was not adequately presented to the jury.
Her request for clemency was rejected by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who said he had reviewed the case but would not intervene.
If completed, the execution would have made Pike the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Female executions remain relatively rare in the United States. Figures cited by the Associated Press show that 18 women have been executed in the country since capital punishment resumed in 1976, compared with more than 1,600 men.
As of Thursday morning, Tennessee authorities had yet to publicly provide a detailed explanation for why the lethal injection failed, while Pike’s lawyers continued seeking emergency court intervention.
Post a Comment